When horses race on an actual circuit, mixing ABC racing and conditioned racing becomes a problem for the fans, tracks and horsemen. That happened in the mid-sixties when Yonkers transitioned to conditioned racing and Roosevelt stayed with letter classifications.

Brandywine lost its USTA membership in 1963 when it went to ABC racing, but they were reinstated the following year when they went back to the conditioned model.

There was a lot of griping about it, so three years later Joe De Frank instituted a hybrid system. Horses five and up went in letter class races, while colts and fillies raced in conditioned races, and four-year-olds had an option. De Frank was big on writing claiming races so that became a major component of the plan.

Since Brandywine’s sister track in the Delaware Valley—Liberty Bell—was a non-ABC track, issues came up. Eventually all tracks made the switch.

Since folks tended to exaggerate the value of their horses when placing them in claimers, the correlation between letter classification and claiming price, based on the purse raced for, didn’t generally work out. A-3 pacers and five and up $20,000 claimers raced for $6,000, but the A-3 pacers would generally beat the claimers racing for the same purse.

Any trainer who doesn’t like the letter the racing secretary hangs on his horse can place his own value on him by sticking him in a claimer. But to do that you need to have claiming races written for all but the top classes. Five of the twelve races on tonight’s card at YR are claimers, and six of the twelve tomorrow and Thursday. That figure drops to four on Friday. There were only two claiming races this past Saturday night. Koch will have a much easier time pulling that off during the winter meet.

"Koch will have a much easier time pulling that off during the winter meet.''He may have an easier time but let's face it the Meadowlands winter meet is crap and I don't see the ABC system doing anything but making it more of a joke than it already is.I guess we will see.

it will be interesting to see what kind of level "1st time coleman" or "1st time garcia herrara" horses will be placed

Talk about giving the racing secretary too much power....the horses will be placed on their current form....not their potential.....of course the point is basically moot since most of them will be in claimers anyway.....the people who think this system wont work have never seen owners and trainers in the paddock with their calculators out figuring out how much money a horse can make in this race and still drop down......that makes for great racing.....though figuring out who can get class relief and who is stuck in the class for a while is the #2 handicapping tool available to the player today

Harness racing moved away from the ABC system was a major improvement at the time for all the reasons many of you mentioned. So why are they really going back to it? is it simply to make it easier for beginners to understand the game?

Then if thats the case, and clearly the sport of harness racing is suffering, anything to bring in new fans, or make it easier for them to understand is not a bad thing.If all of us have stuck around this long, they arent going to lose us...JMHO

"Classified racing has horses evaluated by the racing secretary and moved up and down in class based upon performance,” Koch noted. "We look forward to bringing the public the great racing product the Meadowlands has always had.”

Idk, giving a person or ppl the ability to tell owners what races they can and can't enter based on their personal opinion of horses ability sure seems like a bad idea to me

Why don't you focus on where it all went wrong? Your previous customers told you, but nobody did anything to fix it and now all you clowns are making more changes and pissing more customers off. Every track owner wants to make money from simulcasting and running a short meet with big purses. All that does is help the horsemen and kills the game further as more customers will exit.

NY Area Casinos.... can you tell me that these casinos are not filled with asians ?? Asians love to gamble.... I have been going to the Big M for years and years...... The place is 50% old italian guys.....30% latino/black ...19% is young mixed crowd that looked confused..... 1% filipino/asain . The growth is with diversity..... those italian guys are kicking the bucket every day,,,